


chin up (and i'll throw in a pizza)

by floweryfran



Category: Iron Man (Comics), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Descriptions of Dissociation, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Iron dad and Spider son, IronDad and SpiderSon, Irondad, May Parker (Spider-Man) & Tony Stark Coparenting Peter Parker, Mentioned Skip Westcott, Past Sexual Assault, Peter Parker Feels, Peter Parker Gets a Hug, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker Whump, Peter Parker has PTSD, Protective May Parker (Spider-Man), Protective Tony Stark, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, a large chunk of this is tony just waxing poetic about how much he loves peter, irondad and spider-son, like a LARGE chunk, like we get it tony youre a dad okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:00:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22984423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/floweryfran/pseuds/floweryfran
Summary: Peter, one hand fisting in the wool of Tony’s sweater, keeps his eyes locked on the television screen and lets Tony do what he does best of all: shield him. He metaphorically laps at his wounds. Slowly eases back into his body, like trying on stiff new denim. Breathes, and at once feels at ease. Peter ishere,on Tony’s ugly couch, with Tony, who smells like black coffee and plain Pringles and metal, and Peter is never safer than he is when they’re like this.
Relationships: May Parker (Spider-Man) & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 42
Kudos: 652
Collections: The Best Irondad/Spiderson Fics, The Best Peter Parker Whump Fics





	chin up (and i'll throw in a pizza)

**Author's Note:**

> HEY this is my go at a “peter telling tony about his past with skip wescott” chapter so please be careful if mentions of past sexual assault will trigger u. i'm putting this right here at the top because i want you all to be safe.
> 
> apparently my harley magnum opus did not get all of my festering trauma out of my system, believe it or not. 
> 
> sometimes things hurt and we deal with it by channeling our pain into fictional characters we can force comfort upon since we can’t have comfort in real life and that’s okay! i think! idk homies sorry for all the sad peter shit, leave me happy peter prompts and i’ll write them next hehe

Peter is wary to say that hearing the call of someone in need of Spider-Man’s help _excites_ him, per se, but he cannot deny that it is almost always a well-wanted break from the monotony of sitting on the emergency exit steps on the rear of the Seven train, ferrying himself between Main Street Flushing and Thirty-Fourth Street over and over.

“Karen? Did you catch that?” he asks, jumping to his feet, careful not to tip over the edge of the small lip he is perched upon. He squints, the sunset light low but fiercely orange and pink as it reflects off the metal tracks, aching behind his eyes.

_“Yes, Peter.”_ A map blinks blue on his HUD, and he makes the first leap off the train car towards a brownstone nearby. His web clings onto the brick and he swings his legs forward, letting the momentum carry him into an easy flip, tossing his arm out to catch his slack on the edge of a library. A red dot appears on the map, and he follows it, savoring the familiar burn in his biceps, the slight ache in his neck.

It’s a quick scuffle: a pair of muggers and a group of three girls with those knockoff Gucci purses teenagers have started to use as backpacks, which Peter doesn’t think he’ll ever quite understand because _how_ do they fit all their books and binders in there. Black magic, perhaps. It defies all logic.

“Karen,” he says, once the muggers are webbed, the police called, and the girls safe. “D’you see anything else? Cuz, like, if not, I might just check out. I’ve gotta take a nap so bad.”

_“Nothing else is coming up, Peter.”_

“The police channels are clear? Fire department?” He shoots a web at a stop sign and pulls himself up, perching on his toes atop it. He waves down at a kid hanging over his father’s shoulder. The kid shrieks happily, bouncing. Peter cannot help but laugh aloud.

_“Channels are all clear,”_ says Karen. _“It has been an especially quiet Friday evening. Would you like me to alert Mister Stark that you will be heading to the tower earlier than your agreed upon hour?”_

“Hmm,” says Peter. He tilts his head side to side, breathes in a lungful of gross, mid-May Queens air. “Maybe I’ll grab a snack before I head over there,” he decides. “So, no, I guess. I’ll probably still be there around the usual time.”

_“Sounds good, Peter.”_

“Sure does, Kay,” Peter says, grinning. 

He makes his way back to the alleyway in which he had stored his backpack. He’s getting better at that, webbing it higher on the wall so not just anyone can cut it down. He hasn’t lost a backpack in nearly two months. Tony’s kept a countdown on the wall in the lab, he’s so proud. 

Changing back into his civvies is quick work, and he pulls a beanie on decisively as dusk turns periwinkle around him. He tilts his head back and looks up at it, like paint water spread above him, or melted sherbet sticky underfoot in a cheap ice cream shop in July. 

Everything feels easy, Peter thinks as he walks along the sidewalk, keeping a wide berth from locals and bumping shoulders with clueless tourists. A good day at school, a good patrol, and movie night with Tony to look forward to. Not to mention the greasy slice of pizza he’s about to grab. A true delight. 

The evening breeze whispers around him, rustles his clothes. He is his footsteps on the concrete, he is earbuds pressed into his ears, the White Stripes with power chords played something brash and bold, he is low-hanging clouds turned amber and ochre. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s near bliss.

He thinks he’ll bring May a slice of pizza. She will appreciate that during her late shift, he’s sure.

He continues on with a bounce in his step, enjoying the evening and its promise.

Until he passes an alleyway, and a snap runs up his spine like straining a rubber band too far, it _hurts,_ the immediate rush of _panicPANICDANGER_ and Peter sees stars for a moment before he hears the whimper, the shout, the “please, stop, where’s my mommy, please let me go.”

Peter rips out his headphones and bolts towards the cry in one sharp movement, his stomach rolling, throat tight. Wishes he had stayed in the suit for another five fucking minutes, to give himself a fighting chance, to give himself a shield, something behind which to hide, because there’s a man in there, hulking and broad, and he’s got his hands— there’s a kid— tears and snot dripping down his young face, mouth pulled in pain, lip cracked and bleeding, and Peter’s on the man in seconds, pinning his meaty arms behind his back with one hand and with the other, administering a quick jab to the jaw that sends the man sprawling boneless, deadweight in Peter’s arms. 

Peter lets him drop to the concrete. He looks at his hands. Goes to his knees. “Hey,” he says, looking at the boy as he struggles to zip his pants, mop his tears. Peter tastes bile. The kid has brown eyes, big fucking brown eyes, Peter is going to puke. The concrete, why are wars always raged on these streets, in the gutters of the place that raised him, why is the place he turns into a hero the same place in which people bleed? Why? Why? “Hey, buddy,” he says, and he darts a glance towards the corners of the alley. No cameras. He reaches into his backpack, pulls his mask out and over his face. Heaves, shudders. Sees in the corner of the HUD Karen struggling to pull a biometric scan from him. His levels are jolting senselessly, plummeting and shooting up again as he grapples to pull a breath in. He feels the corduroy couch under his thighs. No, this is pavement, pavement and piss and cigarette butts beneath his scuffed skate shoes. “You recognize me?”

“Spider-Man?” the boy whispers, like something sacred.

“You betcha,” Peter says waveringly, already alternating his screen to scan the boy for injuries. None pop up, other than the expected. “I’m so, so sorry about what was happening, buddy. I’m gonna help you find your mommy and get you to a doctor, okay? They’ve got to check you, to make sure you didn’t get hurt too badly, and then you’ll be able to go home safe, I promise.”

The boy sniffles. “How do— how do you know?”

Peter feels his heartbeat come crashing to a standstill. “Uh,” he says. His eyes sting. “I’ve helped some people like you before,” he lies. “The same thing was happening to them. They, uh, when I helped them, I stayed with them the whole time, to protect them, just like I’ll hang out with you, if you want.”

“You promise?” says the boy. 

“Cross my heart,” says Peter. “Here, I’m—” he pulls off his mask, shoves it back into his backpack. Rolls up a sleeve to reveal a webshooter and glues the bastard to the ground. His aim is sloppy. Webs hit the wall. The concrete. Then the man. Three shots. Three shots. Peter’s hands tremble. Peter’s _hands._

He rolls his sleeve back down. “Okay,” he says, painting on a chipper grin. It feels wrong. Wet paint applied too thick, dripping off the face of the canvas. He holds out an arm. “Want me to carry you? It’ll be like Spider-Man express, a special— special offer, just for brave kids like you.”

The boy nods. He hurries forward and wraps an arm around Peter’s shoulders, presses his face into Peter’s neck, his wet eyelashes fluttering against Peter’s skin. Peter nearly chokes on a breath. “Okay, buddy,” he says. “Let’s head out, okay?”

“Mhm,” says the boy. 

Peter lifts him, and starts to walk. When he blinks, he sees— shocking blond hair, like corn floss, and a hooked nose, and a crooked grin on every passerby. Out of the corner of his eye, stalking after him, long strides, towering over him, even now that he’s grown, he’s grown up, he can’t— not anymore. Not anymore. Never again, now that his muscles are like rocks. Pressure around his— throat, he’s— holding a kid, he needs to focus, he needs to— not. “What’s your name, by the way?” he says, and it comes out like a wheeze.

“Arnie,” says the boy. He whimpers a little, and his shoulders shake with cries. 

Peter rubs his back. “You’re being so brave, Arnie. You’re awesome. You’ve got this.” Peter spews affirmations until his tongue feels forked. “We’re almost there,” he says, seeing the blue hospital sign ahead. Thank god. Thank god he was in Queens, thank god— May is in there. He needs her. Now, he needs her.

“I’m Peter,” Peter offers softly. 

“Peter Spider-Man,” says Arnie. “Is that your full name?”

Peter chokes. “Uh, not— you know what? Sure. That is my full name. Legally and everything, you could look it up in the phonebook if you ever need me.”

“What’s a phone book?” says Arnie, mopping his eyes on his fist. 

Peter pushes the glass doors to the hospital check-in open with his hip. “Something you sit on when you can’t reach the table in the dining room,” he says. 

He goes up to the table, leans forward and whispers to the girl behind the desk. Arnie gives his mother’s cell phone number. Peter hates it. It feels real.

The girl’s mouth goes tight and she nods. “One second,” she says. “I’ll call.”

Peter takes Arnie and collapses in a plastic chair in the waiting area, twisting Arnie around so he’s perched gently on the edges of Peter’s knees.

Arnie’s face twists with discomfort and Peter swallows against a wave of vomit. “Sorry, sorry buddy,” he says, putting Arnie on the ground. “I know. The doctors are gonna help you now, promise.”

Arnie sniffles, standing. “M’kay,” he says. “And my mommy?”

“She’s coming as quickly as she can,” Peter says, hoping he isn’t lying.

Arnie leans his head forward to rest on Peter’s forearm on the arm of the chair. Peter wants to cry. He wants to cry his throat sore. Arnie is so little, he’s so fucking small. An array of popsicle sticks would weigh more. Peter does not understand. He never will.

“Arnie?” says a sweet voice. A homely looking woman waits with a clipboard and a soft smile by the door. 

Arnie looks over at her. 

“That you, sweetheart?” the woman prompts.

“Uh, yeah,” says Arnie, his hand scrabbling to catch Peter’s. Peter squeezes back, brushes his thumb over Arnie’s little knuckles.

“And is this the friend that brought you in?” says the woman.

Peter stands. “Peter Parker, ma’am,” he says. “I’m— ah, I’m May Parker’s nephew. She works in the NICU?”

Recognition glimmers in her eyes. “Oh! Of course, Peter.” Maybe she recognizes him from the long, stilted days he spent sitting in the waiting room there as May worked, the first two weeks after Ben died when he couldn’t go to school but May was too scared to leave him home alone. For good reason. He’s lost. He _was_ lost. He’s— lost. “Alright, then. Let me lead you guys over here, okay?”

She sets them up in a private room, tells them she’s a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner. Arnie grips Peter’s hand as he tells the nurse exactly what happened: he’d been separated from his mother, lost in the crowd, and a man told him he would help only to pull him into an alleyway and—

Peter digs his fingernails into his palm. They aren’t quite long or sharp enough to cut the skin, but the dull ache that emanates from the spot distracts him momentarily. He hears Arnie’s words as if he’s underwater: garbled, undulating, dappled. As long as he cannot grasp them. Keep them fluid and he’ll be fine. He breathes. His lungs feel saturated.

There’s a knock on the door, and a nurse ushers in a woman who can only be Arnie’s mother, based on their identical frizzed, orange hair. Her eyes are wide and harried and Peter can smell fry oil coming off her clothes. He breathes through his mouth to keep from gagging.

“Oh, no,” Arnie’s mother whispers, and Arnie’s face folds. She hurries forward, presses his face against her stomach, green-painted nails scratching through his hair, every iota of her trembling. “I’m here, lamb. I’m right here.” 

The air conditioner heaves.

“I, uh,” says Peter. “Sorry, I’ll—”

“Wait,” says Arnie, and he loosens himself from his mother’s grip to reach for Peter. Peter aches in the marrow of his bones, the roots of his teeth, he is slowly, slowly crumbling like the edge of the shoreline swallowed by the sea. “If I need your help again,” Arnie whispers, “will you be able to find me?”

Peter nods. “Absolutely,” he whispers back, like it’s their secret to share. As soon as Peter thinks it, his throat stings. No secrets. No secrets. Stop. He just needs to— breathe, just breathe through it. He gulps.

“Okay,” says Arnie, and he leans back. 

His mother stops Peter before he can leave with a hand on the shoulder. “Thank you,” she says, fierce but wavering. “Thank you so much.”

“Of course,” Peter croaks. “He’s a good kid.”

Her eyes are wet. “Yeah,” she says, “he is.”

Peter leaves, then. He wanders to the elevator, rides it up to the familiar pale blue and pink floor. He traces the edges between the linoleum floor tiles with his eyes. This floor is too loud. He forgot. Crying, and wheezing, and little hearts struggling to beat. An armada of machines humming, lights shining on undersized bodies to keep them warm like rotisserie fucking chickens, he hears a woman sobbing. This is the worst floor in the hospital, he thinks. Lives about to be snuffed before they even start; a birthday candle burned down to the wick, still smoldering.

Peter walks, and he walks, until he catches a glimpse of violet scrubs and follows it, winding past nurses and doctors and making himself invisible. He is so good at it. He is _so good_ at it.

When she stops at the information desk, he catches her. Taps her shoulder.

She jumps, turns towards him.

“Peter?” May says. She frowns, looks over her shoulder, then hurries to pull Peter out of the hubbub and towards the bathroom at the end of the hall. “What are you doing here, huh? You look like you’re gonna be sick, babe, what’s wrong?”

Peter gapes, because usually seeing May just— fixes it, magically, makes him feel better, but he still feels dirty. Dug halfway into the dirt. 

“Okay,” May says. “We can work with that. Was it patrol? Something you saw?”

“Miss Parker,” comes a call. From the set of double doors behind them comes a staunch-looking woman with grey hair and an unamused quirk to her brows. “Is everything alright? We need you stationed at the desk in the incubation room.”

“One second,” May says, turning her back to the woman and taking Peter’s elbows in her hands. “My advisor,” May mouths, then rolls her eyes. “Do you need me to clock out, Pete? I’ll leave right now if you need me, you know.”

“No, I— I know, don’t,” he says, finding his tongue. “You don’t— I just needed— to see you.”

May tucks some of his loose hair under his beanie. “Okay,” she says. Her eyes search him. “Are you hurt?”

“No,” he says. “Not hurt.”

“Okay,” May says. “For once. That’s good to know.”

“There was— I had to bring a little boy in just now,” he breathes, choked. “He was— in an alleyway, assaulted, he was getting, you know, the bad kind of assaulted—”

“Oh, baby,” May says, soft, the soughing of a summer breeze through a wildflower field. 

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, yeah, I’m— sorry, I just needed to not— I needed to see you really quick, um.”

“Miss Parker,” comes a call.

“I’m sorry,” Peter says.

“No, no,” says May, “you’re fine here, no worries. Is the boy safe?”

“Yes,” Peter whispers, and his skin crawls. 

“Good, good job, baby,” May says, with a fierce sort of pride. It enrobes him, then slips right off. He is glass and May is silk and silk cannot keep him warm. 

“Miss _Parker,”_ says the woman behind May.

“Shit,” May says. “Peter, honey, I don’t want you alone. I don’t. You were going to Tony’s tonight anyway, right? Right. Okay. Perfect. Don’t cancel on him. Promise?”

“I—” Peter says. He can’t stop darting glances at May’s supervisor. 

“Go to Tony,” May says, shooting a glare over her shoulder. “No, don’t fight me on this, kiddo, you’re going to Tony. I’m gonna— text him, make him text me when you get there. I can have him pick you up. He’ll do it, too. I don’t want you alone right now.”

“May,” Peter says.

“No,” May says, and her supervisor is tapping her foot. Peter’s hands. Peter’s hands. “Go. Tony. I’ll have him track you the whole way there, you hear?”

And Peter thinks about May letting go of his elbows. And going back to the apartment. They bought a new couch, after. Because none of them could look at the other one. For a moment, Peter’s vision tunnels. 

May’s fingers dig into his biceps and she says, sharply, “hey.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Sorry. Okay. Tony. Now.”

“Now,” May agrees. “Spend the night. I’ll take off tomorrow and we’ll— go to a museum, or something, just us. Eat our weight in carbonara.”

“Okay,” Peter says. “I love you. A lot. More than anything.”

May’s gaze softens. Her hands rub up and down his biceps. Peter can feel the band she still wears on her finger rolling over the curves of his muscles. _“Ti amo, amore mio,”_ she says. “Go, before Miss Hannigan kicks my ass, or something.”

Peter presses a kiss to May’s cheek, then does as she says. 

He walks to the bus stop and takes one to Main Street Station, where he switches onto the Seven and must trade half an hour of his life to some unknowable deity because by the time he gets to Grand Central he sees he’s gone through eight songs on Spotify and doesn’t remember hearing a single one. This is peaceful. The floating. He lets himself. It is relief, after the frantic, pulsing beat of the hospital. 

The walk to the tower is brief, Peter feeling as if he’s being pitched side to side between tall shoulders that, when he glances up at, are faceless, fingerprint smudges on top of square blazer padding. Like that stupid Ezra Pound poem he’s read in every English class since the eighth grade. Petals on a wet black bough. New York is the tree. What does that make him.

Tony is waiting in the foyer for him, looking anxious. Peter dreads it. He made Tony look like that, all pinched and angular. 

“Kid, hey,” Tony says, stepping forward to meet him. He reaches instinctively to help Peter remove his backpack, and Peter flinches, tumbling back into his body. 

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” he says immediately in a puff of air, and Tony raises his hands.

“You’re good,” Tony says. “My bad. I came on a little fast. You’re good, kiddo.”

Peter nods shakily, pulls off his backpack. Drops it on the hardwood. Listens to the thud. Wonders what landing feels like. Stares at the bag, and feels himself lift again. Like he’s trapped behind a thick pane of glass, watching. It is easier this way.

Tony reaches out slowly, showing his hand, and pulls the beanie from Peter’s head. “You look like a scruffy, homeless stoner, or something,” Tony says.

“Oh,” Peter says.

Tony frowns. “You would usually refute that so hard. _No, Mister Stark, I don’t smoke weed, I’ve never touched a drug in all my days—_ well, guess what, kid, I talk to May, so I know you had your first joint with her on New Years last year, and I know you got the spins and painted a Pollock in the kitchen sink after. So, there.”

Peter does not know how to respond to that. It’s like sifting through river water for sea glass. Nothing catches his attention. 

“Kid,” says Tony. He turns, sits heavily on the couch. His knees crack. Peter’s face winces when he hears. “I said I talk to May, and I meant that. She told me something’s up. Was it patrol? Something happen?”

Peter thinks, _no._ But bearing this weight is making his muscles shudder and this is the best segue he will get. 

No matter that not even Ned knows this. This is Tony, who knows almost everything about him, and still sticks around, jovially. Tony, who once sat him down at a conference table with a cup of tea and told him about Siberia and Afghanistan in lilting levels of uncertainty because he felt obligated to explain his flakiness, his fear to get close— to explain it wasn’t Peter’s fault. Tony, who has walked him back to bed every time he’s sleep-walked in the tower. Tony who has stitched up bullet holes for him, Tony who puts a _have a good day_ note in his lunchbox when he stays over on a school night, Tony who cheers himself hoarse shouting Peter’s name at Academic Decathlon meets.

“Right after,” Peter says, as if it was never a choice as to whether he would tell Tony. It wasn’t. He mourns for Atlas, for the curve of his spine under that weight, and wishes he were strong as a titan to bear this. “I wasn’t even— in the suit anymore.”

Tony pats the couch. Peter looks at it, then sits. He folds his hands, but that feels weird, like a thing out of a Picasso, unwieldy and boxy and fake, so he rests his palms flat on his thighs.

“There was a guy. And there was a kid,” Peter says.

“Okay,” says Tony, after a moment. “A kid. A little kid, littler than you?”

_No_ is perched on Peter’s tongue because he was just like that, he was around that age when Skip’s hands went low, but Tony means now, because Tony does not know about before yet. Precipice. This is dangling, the moment before freefall; whatever Peter thought he knew about tearing through the air, he was wrong. He knew nothing. _Nothing._ “Yes,” he says. Then, “ten, I think.” And then, because once he starts, he cannot stop, “I didn’t get there fast enough. I didn’t— and the guy was, he was touching the kid. Like, _touching_ the kid, it was, it was awful. And no one was stopping, even though— the kid was shouting. No one listened.”

“No one stopped to help a screaming, ten-year-old girl?” Tony says. He’s wincing. Peter would, too, if he could feel his face.

“Boy,” corrects Peter. He opens his mouth to say something and a small keening sound comes out instead.

“Oh,” says Tony, and Peter endures the special torture of watching the gears behind Tony’s eyes groan and click into place, his eyelashes fluttering once, the wrinkles at the corners of his nose deepening almost imperceptibly. Peter wants to iron them out. Peter wants to say _not for me, not worth it._

“Yeah,” Peter says instead.

“When,” Tony says, his eyes closed. 

“I was about— about that same age, yeah.”

“Oh,” says Tony.

“His name was Skip— well, Steven. Wescott. But I called him Skip.” Peter watches Tony’s shoulders hike as he breathes. “He called me Einstein.”

“Oh, _Peter.”_

“Ben cried for weeks, once I finally told him,” Peter says. “I couldn’t— sleep, I couldn’t sleep, because I’d hear Ben crying through the walls, and he’d crack my door open at, like, three in the morning, just to check if I was, I dunno, I dunno. There, I guess. Asleep. I used to fake it but I did a shitty job because I’d always cry when Ben cried- I’m a really bad, uh, sympathetic crier, y’know- anyway. Ben would just. Sob, he’d sob his eyes out, and it was my fault for even letting them know. He would’ve— he would’ve— he would’ve been so much happier if I just. Handled it.”

“Kid,” Tony says. 

“I could’ve,” Peter says, fast. “I could’ve handled it. I know I could’ve. Then Skip wouldn’t be— he wouldn’t have gone to jail, his future is ruined, he probably. He probably won’t get jobs as easily now, it was probably just a teenage mistake, teenagers are stupid—”

“Kid, please,” Tony croaks. “Please. Kid, you’re. Please.”

“I’m— sorry,” Peter says. 

“That’s not, that’s not the point,” says Tony, and his head shakes so quickly that Peter imagines it must hurt. Imagines his brain bouncing off the walls of his skull with bruising force, imagines colored spots in Tony’s vision. “The point— kid. The point is that you didn’t make your— Ben cry. You didn’t. He cried because he was hurting because you were hurting. Did that, does that compute? You didn’t make him sad. Skip— fucking, Scoot, Scamper, that little— fucktard, he did it. It’s his fault. He made your uncle sad, and he hurt you, the same way that asshole hurt that kid today. And Skip—” Tony’s hands shake as he rakes them through his hair. “He deserves to have his life ruined. Yup. A hundred times, a— a million, billion times over. Seventy-six trillion times. He’s scum. Pete. He’s scum. You shouldn’t have, you should never have had to deal with that. I’m so sorry you did.”

“It’s okay,” says Peter. And Tony looks like he’s about to explode, like a grease fire waiting to happen, staring expectantly at a lit match. 

“No it’s not,” Tony says, “no, no no. It’s the biggest, biggest opposite of okay, and I want you to say that right now, right now to me. It is the opposite of okay that this happened to you. Say it.”

Peter says, “Tony.” 

“Say it, or so help me God I’ll fucking— swaddle you in a blanket burrito so tight you’ll never escape it until you wither away at age two-hundred-and-nine, in your flannel cocoon.”

“It is the opposite of okay that— that it happened to me.”

Tony sucks in a breath that whistles. His hands- thick knuckles, white-scar-striped- rub together almost subconsciously. “Good. Thank you. We both needed to hear that. Next step is making sure you believe it, but that’s— baby steps. Baby steps are good.”

“Baby steps,” Peter repeats. 

“The littlest baby steps,” Tony says. “You don’t need big steps. These are good, too.”

“Okay,” says Peter. 

Tony looks at Peter for a moment, then turns sharply away, clenching his hands into fists. Peter tries to tune out the frantic, crooked misstep of his heart pounding. 

“Thank you for telling me,” Tony croaks. “Um. If there’s— if I’m ever overstepping, or, or making you uncomfortable. You tell me. _Capisci?”_

“Yeah,” says Peter. “I mean, yeah. Yeah. But, uh, you haven’t, just so you know. Overstepped. And I’m— usually it doesn’t bother me, usually it’s easy to not even— think about it, like, at all, because, y’know, I’m not exactly a beacon for the opposite sex— or even the same sex, I’m not a beacon at all, I’m a, a smelly garbage can of a human,” Peter is reeling, celluloid strands spinning far too quick, slipping off their tracks, sepia frames bursting out of projector edges, “so I don’t ever even, like, get put into the situation where I’d be able to get upset by remembering, y’know? I don’t even— it’s just a knee jerk reaction at this point. Can’t help it. So, uh. Yeah. I’m gonna,” he presses the heel of his hand against his chest, “just gonna stop,” he finishes at a mumble.

“You don’t have to stop,” says Tony. 

Peter’s gaze locks on him.

“If you need to keep talking,” says Tony. “If you need to keep talking, do it. I’m all ears for you, even if I literally— this is, like, learning one of my waking nightmares happened without me knowing and now it’s emblazoned across my brain for the rest of forever, but I’m— sorry, that was selfish of me to even say, I shouldn’t— long story short, I’m, yeah. You can talk to me.”

Peter pulls his knees to his chest and leans his chin on them. “Thanks, Tony,” he says. “I’m, ah. I’m gonna be okay, though.”

“I know you will,” Tony says, fast. “You’re, like, Herculean, your strength is admirable, like, your brain muscles are— The Rock would be jealous of them.” 

Peter does not call Tony out on his lie. He pulls his elbow up onto his knees, presses his nose into it, and breathes in the dark for a moment.

“I’m proud of you,” Tony blurts. Then, a second time. “I’m proud of you. Peter, I’m so fucking proud of you, all the goddamn time, it’s a little disgusting how proud I am of you. And I’m— everything you do is like another excuse for me to be proud of you? I didn’t know there were more ways someone _could_ be proud of a person, but you’re nothing if not an innovator, kid, and, Christ, I’m just, I’ve got pride to the goddamn gills for you. An extensive amount of it.”

Peter peeks over his arm.

Tony waves his hands noncommittally, not looking at Peter. “You’re the smartest kid around, no one has got a mind like yours. S’why your noggin is so big, to hold that damn big brain. You are, like, dangerously kind, all the time, even when you’re pissed you’re sorta strangely polite about it? Like, you’d open a door for me and then close it on the back of my foot before I get all the way through, but I’d still have an urge to thank you after. You are impressive, supremely astronomical levels of _pain in my ass_ and yet you’re endearing about it, which is miraculous in itself. I’ll even admit, kid, you’re funny. Sometimes you make me actually laugh, and no one makes me laugh. Not even Pepper makes me laugh. I’m not a laugher. You’re— you get it, though. Your radio and my radio are tuned to that same frequency, you know?” 

“Tony,” Peter mumbles, a blush spreading over his cheekbones, along the shells of his ears.

“It’s too easy to brag about you, Pete,” Tony says, shaking his head, still looking into space. “You’re just— the best kid. The _best._ I can’t even pretend to comprehend it. And, like, obviously your _zia_ and _zio_ had something to do with that- okay, probably everything to do with that- but some of that is just _you,_ kid, you’ve got a hunk of red velvet cake for a heart. No one is like you.”

“Tony,” Peter says again, squirming.

Tony finally looks at Peter from the other end of the couch, zoning in on him like a camera focusing. His eyes go round and soft, his head tilting to the side. The corners of his lips turn down almost imperceptibly, like he’s choking on something he doesn’t want Peter to see. “You don’t deserve the load life gave you,” Tony says. “You know that? You get your ass kicked by the universe at a startling frequency, and I’ve got a strongly worded letter for the big guy upstairs about it, but look at you now. You’re here, and you’re still smiling, and strong. Wreaking havoc upon every asshole between Astoria and JFK. That’s fucking badass.”

“Doesn’t feel badass,” Peter says.

“What does it feel like?” says Tony.

Peter rolls words around on his tongue. “Atonement,” he plucks out.

Tony’s eyes spasm into a blink. “For what sin,” Tony says. “What evil could you have possibly committed?”

“Some,” Peter says helplessly. “I musta’ done something real bad, Tony. Otherwise it wouldn’t— be like this, all the time.”

“Like what?” Tony says.

“Always something bad waiting around the corner, no matter what good I try to do to balance it out,” says Peter.

Tony stares at him. It is a gentle look, soft around the edges, the way Tony has been all the time recently, with his beard grown in scruffy and a new arsenal of sweaters making rounds through his wardrobe, but it still probes. Prods at bruises. Tests cracks in his bones. 

“Do you wanna— c’mere?” Tony says. He lifts an arm.

Peter scoots across the couch and presses himself into Tony’s side gratefully, dropping his temple hard against Tony’s sternum, wincing as the man lets out a little huff from the weight. Peter can hear his pacemaker humming. He doesn’t think he’s supposed to. He still does. He listens. He likes to make sure it’s keeping good time.

Tony’s hand rubs up and down Peter’s arm and Peter imagines Tony’s palm is scrubbing away every evil touch that has landed upon his skin. This is a deep clean, like scrubbing rough washcloths over his thighs while May and Ben sleep across the hall, oblivious. No. No. Not like that, because Peter is safe now, the same way he promised Arnie would be.

Tony’s chin presses into the top of Peter’s head, hooks him in place. 

“You’re right here, kiddo,” Tony says, and, somehow, this calms Peter more than if Tony had said _I’m here._

Peter tries to breathe normal until he can’t. Presses his incisors into the inside of his lip and feels his consciousness dip, but it cannot find its footing. He’s done floating. He wants Tony. He wants Tony. He breathes deeply and says, “do you wanna watch a documentary or something?”

_“How Dogs Got Their Shapes?”_ Tony suggests. 

Peter peers up from Tony’s chest, eyes wide. He nods. 

Tony keeps staring at him. Squints, purses his lips. Tony can read Peter like a familiar, soft-spined novel. “You can be hurting,” Tony says. “But you— promise me you’ll remember that we’re- I mean, May and me and Happy and Pepper and Rhodes, we- uh, we’re here for you. Promise me. Chin up,” Tony taps the underside of Peter’s chin with two knuckles, “and I’ll throw in a pizza. One of your nasty pineapple ones.”

Peter’s gaze flicks from one of Tony’s eyes to the other. He says, “I promise.”

The corners of Tony’s lips quirk and he looks up at the ceiling. “You heard the kid, FRI. Queue it up, and place an order.”

The green landscape pours out onto the television screen, a black dog leaping up on its hind legs, and Peter lets out a soft coo.

Tony huffs a thing from beneath Peter’s head that might have been laughlike if their chests were not so cavernous, gaping, aching. He presses his nose into Peter’s hair, leans his lips into the matted curls, drops a firm kiss. His chin returns to its resting spot. He doesn’t speak, but Peter would not have heard him anyway. 

Peter, one hand fisting in the wool of Tony’s sweater, keeps his eyes locked on the television screen and lets Tony do what he does best of all: shield him. He metaphorically laps at his wounds. Slowly eases back into his body, like trying on stiff new denim. Breathes, and at once feels at ease. Peter is _here,_ on Tony’s ugly couch, with Tony, who smells like black coffee and plain Pringles and metal, and Peter is never safer than he is when they’re like this.

He watches dogs flurry across the screen. He is nothing more, nothing less.

“You’re safe,” Tony reminds him at some point, when the leftover pizza is growing cold on the coffee table, the words dancing on a breath, nearly silent.

Peter tightens his fist in Tony’s sweater. Presses his head more firmly into Tony’s chest. Nods, his hair rasping against the wool. 

He knows. With Tony, he is always safe. 

**Author's Note:**

> apparently my new go-to trope is having may and ben send peter to tony when he’s hurting
> 
> i hope anyone feeling the weight of an event like this has someone to whom they can turn and get comfort. please, if you are a victim of an act of sexual violence, reach out. get checked. even if you don't bring a case to law enforcement, it is better to be physically safe, if you can emotionally handle being checked.
> 
> gosh give me happy peter ideas, i'm in a swamp of sad peter shit wow
> 
> i have a buzzfeed unsolved rewrite planned - does that sound fun? tony as ryan and peter as shane, though, because im woke
> 
> please let me know what you thought of this, if you want. if you don't, that's okay too <3


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